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Surf report: Best menu bar apps for Macs

Mac owners, ever pay attention to the real estate on the top-right corner next to the clock? The menu bar is a quick destination for at-a-glance information, and we have some worthwhile suggestions for

Mac owners, ever pay attention to the real estate on the top-right corner next to the clock? The menu bar is a quick destination for at-a-glance information, and we have some worthwhile suggestions for productivity nerds.

Fantastical

Instead of launching a calendar app every time you're planning a meeting, wouldn't it be easier to have that information at your fingertips?

A new favorite of mine, Fantastical ($19.99) from Flexibits is an extraordinarily useful menu bar application that lets you view, add and edit events with ease. Using natural language processing, you can type in pertinent details and it'll automatically populate the proper title, location, date and time fields. If you're like me, you'll notice over time that you've grown more dependent on this time-saving organizational tool — perhaps even wonder how you used to get by. (I don't know!)

No need to switch to a new calendar. Fantastical is compatible with iCal, Calendar, Entourage, Outlook, iCloud, Google Calendar and more.

iStat Menus

Curious about how your computer's running? Bjano's iStat Menus ($16) condenses the following information in your menu bar: CPU, memory, network, disk space and activity, hardware temperature, battery indicator and more. If you want to learn about your computer's status, iStat Menus will provide it — and then some.

When you click on the icons, drop-down menus will expand with more details. Given how robust iStat is, there's some overlap with your computer's default menu bar icons. For example, both provide battery life indicators, but iStat's will also gauge your computer's battery health (including the number of charging cycles it has gone through) and also let you know remaining battery life for your Apple mice and keyboard peripherals. You can also create rules to set different fan speeds when running on your Mac's battery (proceed with caution).

For those who need to free up hard drive space, MainMenu ($6.99 for standard version, $9.99 for pro) from Incredible Bee can also help you locate large files to move or delete. My favorite MainMenu capabilities are those that can override your system when it's acting finicky. They include restarting the Wi-Fi, Finder, dock and menu bar as well as force delete and force empty trash.

Caffeine

Computers sleep to save energy when they're not in use. But if you want to keep your Mac up, Caffeine (free), developed by Lighthead, will do just the trick.

There are a myriad of reasons why you'd want to disable your Mac's screensaver, auto-dimming screen or sleep mode: presentations, watching movies and streaming music. Furthermore, this could save office workers the time it takes to authenticate and type in an unwieldy security code each time their computers go to sleep.

When you want your computer to stay awake, just click on the coffee mug icon. If the cup of joe is empty, that means the system is running normally. When it's full, Caffeine is on. You can also set a timer to keep the app activated for five minutes to five hours (indefinitely is also an option).

Thyme

Sometimes all you want is a simple stopwatch. No need to search for a kitchen timer or launch an app. The cleverly named Thyme will start a timer in the menu bar to help you keep tabs on how much time you're spending on projects, or keep an eye on the frozen pizza in the oven. A personal project built by a Zurich-based developer, Thyme is an incredibly simple (and free) app that will prove handy in the menu bar.